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PARIS, France – Chris Evert has been through a lot of life lately; the terrible and the beautiful.
A second round of treatments for ovarian cancer dominated the first half of her year, before a first grandchild, Hayden James, was born late last month. She was out in Colorado with her son’s family during the first week of the French Open, but then she did a weekend at home and caught a flight to Paris and a cab to Roland Garros. This is where it all started, 50 years ago in 1974, back when Evert was a 19-year-old phenom with the blonde ponytail and rock-solid forehand that nearly every American girl who picked up a tennis racket desperately craved — for some, the pin-straight hair even more than the forehand.
By the time she was done, 15 years later, Evert had won the French Open seven times, more than any player in the modern era besides Rafael Nadal. She spent 260 weeks as world No 1, won 18 Grand Slam titles in all and finished with a clay-court match record of 382-22, a 94.55 percent win-rate; the best women’s clay-court player of all time.
Chris Evert says she felt completely comfortable on the clay in Paris. (James Drake / Getty Images)
That makes it slightly bewildering that she doesn’t…
